Feeling better - have been reading up on those statistics like P/E ratio ... guess in the big picture, the goal is still the same:

to try and find a quality company that will hopefully do well in the long-term

and hopefully be able to pick up the stock at a good price?

So the statistics are supposed to help with that?

The author of the book, Stock Market Investing, had this funny thing to say though

Quote:

The annoying thing about stock measurements is that even if every one of them gives a green light to a stock you're considering, it might still end up being a bad investment.

It seems like a lot of the stats tend to describe the performance of the company over the past year - wonder if maybe there's a danger of relying too much on statistics that describe too small a window, and maybe it's super important to remember to keep the big picture in mind, and look at the stats all through the years (which isn't readily available?), and stay updated on all the articles that get written with updates on what's the company's up to this year, and stuff like that?

Will maybe post the earning stats (EPS, P/E ratio) of a couple of companies tomorrow, and hopefully try to figure out how to use them??

This is the king of growth measures, the famous bottom line that everybody lives or dies for.

The more a company earns, the more successful it is and the more desirable it becomes to investors. That should make the stock price rise.

The book also said that ideally, a company's EPS should hopefully be ...

large,

growing larger every year

and hopefully growing larger at accelerating rate?

Looking for the EPS Measurement Online

Went in search of the EPS values online, and was able to find the current EPS values listed in lots of places. But it looks like the EPS values for all the earlier years may not be available in too many places - without a subscription service?

Was only able to find the current EPS for Visa (V) listed on Yahoo Finance ...

There was also this subscription site that gives a couple of free searches a day, that can graph a stock's yearly EPS - so this is a graph for Visa with the stock price and the EPS on one graph, with a different y-axis ...

Wasn't sure what to make of that one EPS listed on the Yahoo page - because looking at this year's EPS all by itself, that $2.53 didn't look so great

So guess it was quite helpful to be able to see the EPS graph alongside the stock price graph on gurufocus.com, to see how earnings growth will tend to lead to stock price growth over time, if the company's doing okay?

More Examples of EPS

Here's another graph of a company's yearly EPS alongside the stock price for the last 15 years (different y-axes), where earnings and the stock price seem to grow at a similar rate - United Health (UNH) may be part of the Dow?

And then here's Amaya

Guess the silver lining about knowing so much about Amaya, is that it comes in handy when it's helpful see what a company might look like when it doesn't seem like it's healthy and growing over the long-term?

And then there's some companies whose graphs seem to be somewhere in-between? Not so erratic, but not super steady either? Like here's Disney's (DIS) ...

If Disney's earnings are steadily rising, then was that rise and fall of the stock price over the last couple of years just a bubble? That confuses me, because isn't the market supposed to be efficient?

It looks like Amazon's is a little off as well ...

Was looking online to see if people thought Amazon might be in a bit of a bubble or something ... lots of different opinions on the internet Maybe there's enough stocks out there with steadily growing graphs, that maybe can just stay away from the more complicated ones that might need some interpretation?

The gurufocus.com site's been really buggy tonight - also, am out of free searches for the day Can post some more graphs of some more stocks tomorrow ...

There's stuff on the internet saying the stock market might be going into a downswing for the rest of the year, because OPEC might not agree to cut back their supplies on Nov. 30 like they promised (unless that winds up being a good thing?), and the interest rates are supposed to be going up on Dec. 13 or 14.

Guess in the short-term it always feels kind of bad to see things go down in value Although, guess because it feels so bad, that's supposed to be the time to go looking for stuff for the long-term at a cheaper price? Still haven't bought anything for my tax free savings account - am still looking through all those research reports at Zacks ... will maybe try posting some of those tomorrow too?

And then there's some companies whose graphs seem to be somewhere in-between? Not so erratic, but not super steady either? Like here's Disney's (DIS) ...

If Disney's earnings are steadily rising, then was that rise and fall of the stock price over the last couple of years just a bubble?

Wonder if the big spike in Disney maybe might have been because of that tip to buy what we know? Was 2014 the year the movie Frozen came out, with that big hit song Let it Go?

The person who gave that tip is profiled in my book Stock Market Investing - haven't gotten that far in the book yet lol, but Peter Lynch did a follow about that tip last year, and posted it in my old blog ...

Quote:

Originally Posted by TrustySam;

Guess Disney makes lots of hit movies - but guess it's also home to Lon and Norm on ESPN ... and they own ABC and all those parks too, and stuff like that?

So maybe sticking with what we know may be a good starting point - but then guess looking at research reports and earnings, and other stuff is important too?

Have just about finished saving all the research reports available at zack.com Guess they get updated from time to time - but it seemed like it might be nice to post them, to maybe make it easier to be able to take a quick look at all the different stocks available in all different sectors of the economy?

Retail

Consumer Staples

Consumer Discretionary

Computers and Technology

Finance

Business Services

Medical

Oils and Energy

Utilities

Multi-sector Conglomerates

Autos, Tires, and Trucks

Transportation

Basic Materials

Industrial Products

Construction

Aerospace

Tried to list the categories in order of what's most familiar - guess it makes more sense for me to stick with stuff that's familiar like coffee or clothes, instead of stuff that's not like ... iron mining?

So there should be quite a few familiar company names listed in the first couple of categories - then maybe not so many at all later on ...

GREATEST FIND: Domino's Pizza (?!) - looks like they're still a mid-cap, and the Zack's research report said they've just started expanding into countries like Brazil, Indonesia, and Turkey, and that things are going really well? Guess they're pretty tasty - they seem to still use real meat, unlike some places, so guess that's a plus lol ...

Wanted to post some reports first, so would have a variety of stuff to look at while trying to become more comfortable with all those new statistics from my book Stock Market Investing.

Guess with some of the data like the EPS looking so different for different companies, with some results like those for Disney and Amazon looking a bit more complicated than some others, hopefully it might help to keep practicing looking at different graphs, and reading more about each company?

So may post all the reports first, and then continue trying to learn more statistics? Oh boy, gl me

Oh my goodness - looks like there were things happening while i was asleep ... nooooo!!

Although, it like we made the finals - woohoo!!!

Wish the games were more spread out, so it would have been possible to catch all the action - although it's pretty exciting that the finals will be tomorrow, and we'll be participating ... tomorrow should be good!!

just so you don't think you're just in here talking to yourself, I've been keeping up for a week or two.

r/wallstreetbets
r/Robinhood

those are two reddit subs I read most days. I wouldn't trust any of it, but it seems like you like to read other peoples' stock tips and there's lots there.

two quick questions:

-do you use the robin hood app? seems like a leak if you're not. no fees (like, literally at all) to buy/sell, no minimum deposit (or maybe there is, but it's trivially low). if you're gonna stick with the blind monkey approach, think of fees as the rake. you can break even playing cards, but the rake ends up getting you...

-I don't understand why you're not just socking $$$ into VOO or VTI or whatever and calling it a day, other than a love of learning...

I've just been buying a couple shares of whatever Vanguard funds sound good at the time once or twice a month. sprinkle in some BRK (B obviously lol) and top it off with an irrational love of bonds (with a side of gamble, though even that is in the form of real estate or emerging market funds) and I feel like I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing.

interesting thread for several reasons, gl. I'm sure there are other lurkers besides me...

Had a chance to take a bit of a closer look at some of the stocks in this section - maybe just a couple of the larger sites are doing super well these days? Looks like we may have missed out on the boom

just so you don't think you're just in here talking to yourself, I've been keeping up for a week or two.

r/wallstreetbets
r/Robinhood

those are two reddit subs I read most days. I wouldn't trust any of it, but it seems like you like to read other peoples' stock tips and there's lots there.

two quick questions:

-do you use the robin hood app? seems like a leak if you're not. no fees (like, literally at all) to buy/sell, no minimum deposit (or maybe there is, but it's trivially low). if you're gonna stick with the blind monkey approach, think of fees as the rake. you can break even playing cards, but the rake ends up getting you...

-I don't understand why you're not just socking $$$ into VOO or VTI or whatever and calling it a day, other than a love of learning...

I've just been buying a couple shares of whatever Vanguard funds sound good at the time once or twice a month. sprinkle in some BRK (B obviously lol) and top it off with an irrational love of bonds (with a side of gamble, though even that is in the form of real estate or emerging market funds) and I feel like I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing.

interesting thread for several reasons, gl. I'm sure there are other lurkers besides me...

Hi!

Ya, didn't expect anybody to be reading this thread - it's a bit silly with all the extra stuff added in ... and kind of disorganized and stuff too ...

Also yes, the learning is really the big thing Kind of scary to be investing when there was that huge crash in 2008 - yikes!! Guess am maybe hoping learning more will help take some of the mystery out of things - and if there's an extra bit of return to be made too, then that'd be pretty nice as well

So much information all over the internet though - very interesting, but quite overwhelming as well. So that's been great to hear from all of you what you've been finding useful - had never heard of Robin Hood ... guess that must come in super handy for people who trade a lot, if trading fees were the big thing that was eating away at some peoples' profits? And haven't checked out reddit either - those threads sound a bit like the 2+2 Finance section ... it sounds like some people have made quite a bit of money from the tips in that thread?

Maybe it'd be better to just stick with an ETF - it looks like almost everybody did fine today ... except Visa? Guess it hasn't been too long - hopefully won't lose wind up losing *too* much with my little experiment

Have put a bunch of Zacks.com research reports onto an online storage site, box.com, so if you're interested in checking any of them out, please help yourself! Also everybody else who's stopped by Still have a ton more to add too

Saw on the news that people are so outraged about the Airmiles expiring, they may pass a law next week to stop them - someone in Parliament must do a lot of shopping at the LCBO, because have never seen the Government act so fast to pass a law! lol!!

The GPL's still on - are we hoping for Berlin to win? Tomorrow should be good Night everybody

This thread feels like it's starting to spiral out of control again Will try adding a list of things to do, to try and refocus

GOAL OF THE THREAD - to try to learn how to find healthy companies that will grow over the long-term

Learning List

1. Finish posting the research report library (for reference later)
2. Finish reading 3 books, and post highlights of new stuff learned
3. Try to do a learning thing of statistics, so can hopefully start looking at those pages with all the numbers on them, and understand what they're saying?

Going to stick to posting here for the next little while - feel like there's a very real chance could wind up 'tarding' up another Timex thread in NVG, the more i post ... yikes

Okay, going to post more of those research reports now - so that means more walls of text coming up

Am hoping to get most of the stuff on my list done by Dec 12th, in case they raise the interest rates on the 13th or 14th? Still haven't bought anything with my tax free savings account, and want to be prepared in case things take a turn after the rates get raised? Hopefully things start to go up again soon after Trump takes office in the New Year though!